Ultima Online: Renaissance

Moby ID: 3010

Windows version

A renaissance, indeed--this one finally made UO an enjoyable experience.

The Good
UO is a great MMORPG, though it certainly isn't to everyone's taste. If you want to make items and sell them rather than go off on numerous "quests" (AKA "goose chases"), then you'll appreciate how UO makes this a viable option for you. People have complained about the lack of 3D graphics, but I prefer the 2D isometric perspective. Typed messages are printed onscreen above the character speaking, which makes communication less confusing.

UO also has an inherent advantage over its competitors: the venerable Ultima franchise. The vaguely Arthurian, but essentially original, virtue-oriented world of Ultima is very familiar to old-timers like myself. It has a kind of integrity to it, as it never feels like the game designers took all of the fantasy paperbacks off the shelf at the local Barnes & Noble and threw them into a blender (I'm looking at you, EQ).

The tutorial and the new "newbie" area of Haven that came with Renaissance are excellent. Social interaction is always a mixed bag with these online games, but I found most other players to be both polite and helpful. The division of the world into PVP and non-PVP facets was (and still is) a major improvement, and the reputation system seems to have made cutthroat criminality less attractive than it once was.

The Bad
The flaws in UO can be divided into two categories:

Specific to UO: Lag, lag, and more lag. In fairness, I think even the laggy Renaissance was a significant improvement over previous versions of UO, and it makes a difference what time of day/night you log on.

General complaints about online games: Consumes enormous amounts of time and money. Death is far too costly, considering how long it takes for a character to gain a reasonable level of skill (and also considering that you have probably invested hundreds of dollars and months of your life in building up that character). Very few people actually role play, and WAY too many people use the game as a chat room. Anti-social jerks can also be a problem, as meanies will try to mislead and take advantage of newbies and other naïve players--even on the non-PvP servers.

The Bottom Line
If you have the considerable time and money required by an online game, and the Ultima universe appeals to you, then Renaissance and later iterations of UO are a good buy.

by PCGamer77 (3158) on March 14, 2002

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